Stevens Travel Management, a $50 million
agency in New York, joined Vacation.com to gain access to that
organizations collection of preferred suppliers, which Stevens will
in turn market through its Web-based arm, Portals to the World.
Portals to the
World provides proprietary links to more than 400 travel Web sites
for information and booking purposes. It is designed so nonprofits
and trade organizations can promote the site with their own
branding to their memberships. Travel agents can similarly present
the site as their own to their customers.
When Portals
earns commissions, it splits the pay with the organizations and
agencies; Stevens Travel remains the agency of record whether with
Vacation.com or individual suppliers. Some organizations use the
site now, but to date no agency links are live.
Harold Stevens,
the agencys CEO, said Portals needed more off-line product for
agents and others.
Vacation.com is a
good fit for the quality of its products and for the way it
promotes. And it is very large and has a good reputation, he
said.
He said he does
not expect many, if any, of Vacation.coms members to adopt Portals
as their agencys Web site.
If that were
likely, I doubt Vacation.com would have done this, he said. Stevens
said he expects Portals to attract more agencies in the home-based
category.
Worldspan is
Portals prime GDS, with backup from Sabre and Amadeus, Stevens
said. Vacation.com is owned by Amadeus.
In an unrelated
move, Stevens, founder, president and CEO of the agency, kicked
himself upstairs. He is now the chairman and CEO of Stevens Travel.
He tapped Stephen Thomas-Schulere, already COO, to assume the
presidency.
Characterizing
himself as a little long in the tooth, Stevens said it was time for
the transfer and that Thomas-Schulere will eventually be
CEO.
To contact
the reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to Nadine Godwin
at [email protected].